We investigated the impact of five monetary subsidy regimes on economic values of traits in beef cattle: (1) Maximum prices for slaughter animals actually received in the Czech Republic during 2004, with no subsidies of any kind; (2) Prices as in (1), with subsidies awarded per ha of permanent grassland and per calf born, (3) Prices as in (1), with subsidies awarded per ha of agricultural land, per ha of pasture and meadow, per beef cow in a forage system and per livestock unit; (4) Prices as in (1), with subsidies awarded per ha of agricultural land, (5) No subsidies, but prices received for slaughter animals that covered production costs and resulted in 1% profit. The modelled farm showed negative profit under real price conditions with no subsidies(regime 1), which led to an underestimation of economic values for functional traits. The same results were obtained in regimes in which subsidies did not depend on the number of animals (3) or on meat production from the enterprise (4).